Can happiness and the flu coexist? I’m trying to figure that out, because now, after many years, I have the flu and I’m not having fun. What a nuisance! That’s why you haven’t seen much writing from me over the last week. I hope the worst of it’s over. The most unpleasant part of this flu has been the chills and the fever and then at night, the cough when I try to sleep.

It feels like the life has been sucked out of me. No energy. No enthusiasm. No creativity.

It has made me feel real limited. It definitely makes it hard to be inspired when I’m so drained of energy. The routine gets disrupted. Schedules go to hell. I even had to cancel a music gig.

Making the situation even more challenging is that fact that my wife Maggie also has the flu. If it’s not my coughing keeping us awake, it’s her coughing.

The challenge for me when feeling this bad is to keep a positive attitude and not fall into any bad habits like negative thinking. I’m catching myself being negative all the time. Maybe I need more practice being sick. (Just kidding.)

With both of us sick, there is nobody who feels like cooking, doing laundry, doing dishes, making the bed. Sometimes I know I need to eat but who has the energy to fix anything?

The bottom line for me is that when I feel this lousy, the biggest challenge is to smile and be happy. There are plenty of things to be happy about; it just seems a lot harder for me to remember what they are right now.

I guess I’m just a lousy patient. But then again, I don’t remember ever seeing anyone feeling blissful when suffering from the flu.

But why is that? Perhaps with a nose rubbed raw along with the fevers and chills and coughing and diarrhea I find that it’s easier to be grumpy than happy. I’m sure that it’s possible to be happy while being sick. I’ve been on death’s door feeling pretty blissed out but that was something that had my full attention. And I was ready to go.

This doesn’t have my full attention. This is a nuisance. Instead of focusing my attention, it only serves to distract me. I’m finding that my awareness has gone down the toilet with everything else. Oh well, this too will pass.

As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger. Maybe next time I will have more patience and more acceptance.

Maybe I need to be more grateful for the health I do have. Granted, I ache from head to toe, but I still have a beating heart and all my vital organs. I am so much more fortunate than many, many others.

That reminds me of a joke, and jokes are important when you’re sick. Laughter is good for you–just as important as exercise and good nutrition. Here it is:

An elderly man tells his doctor that he is donating his heart to the heart bank, his eyes to the eye bank, and his kidneys to the kidney bank.

The doctor asks why he would want to do that. “Your heart is shot, you have glaucoma, and your kidneys don’t function.”

The patient said, “I guess I just want somebody to know how I feel.”

So, can happiness and the flu coexist? Sure! Why not? As long as you don’t forget to laugh. But research shows that the more happiness you have, the harder it is for the flu to stay around.

Anyway, thanks for your patience with my reduced writing output during this illness. I wish you all good health. But if you do catch the flu, stay home and create as much happiness as you can. Happiness is a strengthening emotion and it helps others, too.